Punishable By Death

... yes, you are. https://t.co/SdNZHhYEc8

— Jane Coaston (@janecoaston) April 14, 2021

This got interesting rather quickly:

No, you aren't. There are 32,000,000 traffic stops a year in the US. That a handful of these result in deaths does not mean that the offense one was pulled over for are "punishable by death." Respectfully, this is overwrought rhetoric of the student newspaper variety.

— Ed Fitzcarraldo (@EdFitzcarraldo) April 14, 2021

Okay, point taken. What, then, about who faces the risks of death from a traffic stop, and who doesn't?

This happened yesterday in Minnesota, the suspect was a 61-year-old white man fleeing police. He wasn't shot or tased. pic.twitter.com/FEq39kssC9

— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) April 15, 2021

In this case, as opposed to Duante Wright, the driver actually drove away.  Twice.  After assaulting an employee at a hardware store with "a piece of lumber" for being asked to wear a mask.

The man left the store and was soon spotted by a police officer in the parking lot of a nearby Walmart. When the officer tried to stop his vehicle, the man led him in what Gifferson described as "a slow speed pursuit" in the area of the Hutchinson mall near Hwy. 15 and S. Grade Road.

The vehicle soon stopped near Hwy. 15 and Freemont Avenue. When the officer tried to engage the suspect through the driver's side window, the suspect took off "at a high rate of speed" with the officer trapped and hanging from the window, Gifferson said. During the struggle, the suspect hit the officer in the head with a hammer, he said.

The officer is hospitalized in stable condition, and the suspect was arrested, police said. The McLeod County Sheriff's Office is investigating.

I suppose at some point this discussion is “overwrought rhetoric of the student newspaper variety.”  But only if you generalize it broadly enough.  The question is not how many traffic stops end in death.  The question is:  which end in death, and which don’t.  The question is: why do any of them end in death?  There are too many cases of black men being shot by police during the investigation of non-capital offenses.  Is it so unreasonable to conclude that some crimes (is a traffic offense really a “crime”, in the popular sense of the word?) involve the death penalty, whether or not that penalty is sanctioned by the state?  The question is:  who dies, and why; and what we, as a society, are doing about it?